FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

May 10, 2010

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court

TENTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

No. 10-3057

v.

(D. Kansas)

BOUNTAEM CHANTHADARA,

(D.C. Nos. 6:09-CV-01357-MLB and

6:94-CR-10128-MLB-1)

Defendant - Appellant.

ORDER DENYING
CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY *

Before HARTZ, ANDERSON, and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges.

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination
of this matter. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
Defendant and appellant Bountaem Chanthadara, a federal prisoner
proceeding pro se, seeks a certificate of appealability (COA) to enable him to
appeal the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion for a new trial or dismissal of

This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of
the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its
persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.

the charges against him. For the following reasons, we deny him a COA and
dismiss this matter.

BACKGROUND
In 1996, Mr. Chanthadara was convicted of robbing a restaurant in Wichita,
Kansas, and committing a murder in connection therewith. He was initially
sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for the robbery and to death for the
murder. On appeal, this court affirmed the convictions but reversed the death
sentence and remanded for resentencing. United States v. Chanthadara, 230 F.3d
1237 (10th Cir. 2000), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 992 (2001). In 2002, the district
court resentenced Mr. Chanthadara to life in prison without parole on the murder
count and left the twenty-year robbery sentence unchanged. Mr. Chanthadara did
not appeal that new sentence.
Mr. Chanthadara filed this 2255 petition in November 2009. He claimed
that his attorney had received a letter from the government in 2008 advising him
of the governments recent discovery of an FBI scientist who gave false ballistics
testimony at his trial. The district court assumed that the 2255 motion was
timely under the newly discovered evidence exception to an otherwise untimely
motion and concluded that the information about the false testimony was merely
impeaching evidence and would not have been significant enough in light of the
overwhelming evidence of guilt to produce an acquittal at a new trial. The
-2-

district court accordingly denied Mr. Chanthadaras 2255 motion. He seeks to

appeal that denial.

DISCUSSION
The facts relating to Mr. Chanthadaras conviction are fully set out in our
opinion in his direct appeal and need not be repeated here. See Chanthadara, 230
F.3d at 1244-46. On November 8, 2008, Gary Peterson, a lawyer who had
represented Mr. Chanthadara at trial and on appeal, received a letter dated
April 15, 2008, revealing that an FBI scientist, Kathleen Lundy, had provided
false expert testimony concerning ballistics at Mr. Chanthadaras trial. There is
no dispute that the letter correctly revealed the false testimony. 1 See Berry, 2007
1

Ms. Lundy admitted to falsely testifying in another case. That case

described the circumstances as follows:
In 1999, Kathleen Lundy took a tour of the Winchester plant that
manufactured bullets and made a note that in 1996 the factory
switched from purchasing blocks of lead that were required to be
remelted before being made into bullets to purchasing billets which
did not need to be remelted. Ragland v. Commonwealth, 191 S.W.
3d 569, 580-81 (Ky. Sup. Ct. 2006). In the summer of 2001, in a
Colorado case, she testified to this fact. Id. at 581. Subsequently,
she was advised that her handwritten note was in error and that the
factory had switched to purchasing billets in 1986, not 1996. Ms.
Lundy notified the Colorado prosecutor of the error. Id. In January
2002 she testified at a Daubert hearing to the 1996 date in the case of
Ragland v. Commonwealth. She knew the date was an error but did
not correct it. Id. At the Ragland trial she was impeached based on
this error; she indicated she had misunderstood the question at the
Daubert hearing and that she knew the date was in error when she
testified to it. Id. She pled guilty to making a false statement under
(continued...)
-3-

WL 4225068, at *2 (Ms. Lundys perjury was publicly announced by the

Associated Press on July 25, 2002[.]). Additionally, on September 2, 2005, the
FBI announced that it would no longer use the compositional analysis of bullet
lead (CABL), which was the method Ms. Lundy used in Mr. Chanthadaras case
to link the murder weapon to him.
Mr. Peterson immediately sent the letter dated April 15, 2008, to
Mr. Chanthadara, although it is not clear exactly when Mr. Chanthadara received
the letter. On November 10, 2008, Mr. Peterson sent a letter to the United States
Attorneys Office, but never received a reply. Mr. Chanthadara ultimately filed
this 2255 motion on November 13, 2009.
The government argued to the district court that Mr. Chanthadaras motion
was untimely, whether it is construed as a Fed. R. Crim. P. 33(b)(1) motion for a
new trial or a 2255 motion to vacate or set aside his sentence. The district court
assumed the motions timeliness: Because Mr. Peterson did not receive any
response to his November 10, 2008, letter requesting additional information and
because it is unclear what date [Mr. Chanthadara] received a copy of the

(...continued)
oath, a Class B misdemeanor in Kentucky. Id. A new trial was
granted to Mr. Ragland.
Berry v. United States, 2007 WL 4225068, at *4 (E.D. Wash. Nov. 27, 2007)
(unpublished).
-4-

governments April 15 letter, the court will assume, without deciding, that
defendants 2255 motion is timely. Mem. & Order at 2-3, R. Vol. 1 at 125-26.
The district court accordingly went on to analyze the merits of
Mr. Chanthadaras claim that Ms. Lundy, an FBI scientist and official of the
U.S. Department of Justice, gave untrue, misleading and unreliable testimony
during [his] trial concerning bullet lead analysis allegedly linking [him] to the
charged offenses, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth
Amendment. Id. at 3 (quoting 2255 Motion at 4). The court rejected that
claim, concluding in pertinent part as follows:
The court finds that Ms. Lundys subsequent perjury and the
fact that the FBI no longer uses CABL to be merely impeaching
evidence. Regardless, there is no claim, and no evidence, that the
government was aware of the falsity until long after [Mr.
Chanthadaras] trial. [Mr. Chanthadara] cannot claim that the
government knowingly and intentionally used the falsity to obtain a
conviction. . . .
Moreover, [Mr. Chanthadara] has not claimed, and cannot
claim, that [the] evidence was so prejudicial that it affected the
judgment of the jury. The governments case-in-chief lasted four
days. The government presented 24 witnesses, including rebuttal
witnesses. Some of these witnesses saw [Mr. Chanthadara] carry the
9mm pistol, which was later determined to be the murder weapon,
point the gun towards his own head after Mrs. Barbara Sun was shot,
and then throw the gun into a river. [Mr. Chanthadaras] palm print
was also found on the broken glass from the display case at the
Mandarin Chinese Restaurant.
The transcript of the governments witnesses testimony
totaled approximately 723 pages. Ms. Lundys trial testimony
consisted of 10 transcript pages. Her testimony was short and
concerned only one piece of the governments overwhelming
-5-

evidence that established [Mr. Chanthadaras] guilt. Ms. Lundys

testimony could not have been all that significant to the jury such
that it would probably produce an acquittal at a new trial.
Therefore, [Mr. Chanthadara] is not entitled to relief under 2255.
Id. at 5-6. Mr. Chanthadara seeks a COA to appeal that conclusion.
The issuance of a COA is jurisdictional. We will issue a COA only if the
applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.
28 U.S.C. 2253(c)(2). To make this showing, Mr. Chanthadara must
demonstrate that reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter,
agree that) the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the
issues presented were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.
Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2002). Where the district court has
rejected a claim on its merits, the petitioner must demonstrate that reasonable
jurists would find the district courts assessment of the constitutional claims
debatable or wrong. Id.
As the above excerpts indicate, the district court correctly resolved the
merits of Mr. Chanthadaras claim. Because we have determined that no jurists of
reason would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in denying
Mr. Chanthadaras 2255 petition, we deny his application for a COA and
dismiss this matter.

-6-

CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we DENY a COA and DISMISS this matter.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT

Stephen H. Anderson
Circuit Judge

-7-